Hope.

I have a hope in the shape of a little ring. I always wore it on the fourth finger on my left hand. Today I gave it away for safe keeping. For an assurance. It was small and silver, but it's meaning was bigger than life. It feels really strange not to have it on, to look at my hand and not see it gleaming there. But it was only a transfer for the time being.

[FYI: Dad? I know you read this, but still. Don't freak yet.]

Distance doesn't compare to the meaning. There is nothing too big to overcome and there is an abundance of faith. We've crossed our t's and dotted our i's, we crossed our lines and dotted our promises; there is no turning back. Moving forward means either epic success or epic failure with no middle ground. We shot the middle man and squelched time from now to then, and if then never arrives then we are lost in negative space. We are standing on the precipice, you and I, and if we time it right we'll start flying. It's sink or swim, and we're swimming against the current, soaring against gravity, striving against reason. It is a tough road to hoe, especially when the cheer from the stands turns into eye-rolling disbelief. But the biggest hill to climb will be the one of waiting and staying in line. It's the restraint involved, the self-control, the willpower that will be the ultimate test; if we love each other like we say we do, there will be respect, and commitment, and purity. If we love the Lord like we say we do, individually more so, even, than together, then there will be such things and temptation will fall short in the light of His Glory. Failure is undesirable but we must constantly be on guard; there is no "it won't happen to us." Trust? Hmm... trust.

So much was unexpected in you. Every new thing is an adventure and I love it. How would I ever have guessed? I wouldn't have. I would never have guess, or dreamed, or imagined. It just... happened. Things realigned. A first and simultaneously a last, for me. A sunrise and an eventual sunset, but we haven't even reached midday. It's the last wee, beautiful hours of the morning, with the light dawning over a landscape so serene that we can't quite make it all out yet.

The future is big. We will do things on our own; we will go our own ways; we will make our own friends and have our own adventures and accomplish our own dreams. It's wonderful! But there's a part that we will always, reassuringly, have together. Together. Six months behind us and so many, many more to go. As we always say, let's do it right.